Naval History Lesson

Will Hartung - Master Rallyeist [email removed] writes:
> ... Back after WWI (or
> maybe it was the Russo-Japan War...anyway), the World Powers decided
> to limit their navies, and bascially said that the various countries
> could only have so many of this ship and that ship. Of course, in
> order to classify the ships, they had a list of rules which would tell
> them what category a ship would fall.

I think you are talking about the Washington Naval Treaty of 1920.  This
was primarily between the nations of Great Britain, the United States,
and Japan.  Other powers signed the treaty, as well, but were not
important players in the negotiations.  The treaty was negotiated to
prevent a costly, unnecessary, and potentially dangerous multi-way naval
arms race, and was fundamentally an arms limitation treaty.

> One of the more important considerations was gun size and gun count.
> So, one thing the Japanese did soon after these rules were published,
> was design what I'm guessing is the Battlecruiser.

Um, no, sorry.

Immediately prior to the first World War, Admiral Fisher of the Royal
Navy procured the HMS Dreadnought, the world's first all-big gun
battleship.  The main armament was a relatively large number (10 I
believe) of identical large guns.  Guns were to fire in salvoe (all
together) so that the fall of the shot could be easily observed, and the
aim corrected.  Having all of the same type of gun made this much easier
(it is quite difficult to estimate which gun fired the shot based on the
size of the splash of a miss, at a range of several thousand yards).

Because ships of this type could effectively engage targets at several
TIMES the effective range of earlier designs, the Dreadnought type of
battleship made all previous designs obsolete.  Subsequent battleships
of this type where called "Dreadnought-Battleships" or simply
"Dreadnoughts".

Admiral Fisher also had another idea: to take approximately the same
armament as a dreadnought-battleship and place it in a lighter, faster
hull.  This was the battlecruiser.  He reasoned that the improved speed
and maneuverability would allow the ship to avoid being hit; thereby
protecting it just as well as the armor of the slower battleship.
Subsequent events were to prove this theory wrong.

The Washington Treaty was a marvel of negotiation (made possible
primarily by the American's ability to decrypt and read *everyone's*
diplomatic cables).  It provided for a "Naval Holiday" (a moratorium on
new construction), limited the size of each class of vessel, and limited
the number of such ships each nation could have.  In addition, the
maximum size of weapons was specified for each class (to prevent such
abuses as "aircraft carriers" with 12-inch guns).

The Washington Treaty eventually expired, and was replaced by the London
Naval Treaty (which was *not* a marvel of negotiation), and was
generally repudiated starting around 1935.

During this time the predicted naval amrs race developed.  In the
thirties, gun sizes increased to 15, 16, and 18 inches, armor
protection increased in thickness.  The Americans developed the superfiring
turret (by changing the location of the signting and ranging equipment,
it became possible to mount turrets so that one set of guns fired over
the top of another turret).  Such superfiring dreadnought battleships
became known (logically enough) as superdreadnoughts.  During this time
the speed of the ships increased (better turbines and gearing systems,
more powerfull boilers, and better underwater hull designs) as well.

> I mean, what do you call a little, 30 foot ship armed with  4 SSMs
> designed to knock out just about anything that floats? "Small enough
> to be a patrol boat with enough firepower to level Manhattan!"

I call 'em dead meat.  Such ships are designed to be expendable, and are
best employed against larger ships in groups.  The excahnge of severl of
the PTM or PHM class ships (which are cheap, quick and easy to build) in
exchange for an enemy Escort, Destroyer, or maybe Cruiser (even the
smallest of which have costs in the hundreds of millions, and
construction times to match).


Scott 2G Kellogg writes:
> Power:    3972902/7945805, Fusion=360Terawatts, Dur=300yrs +Jump-1
>           BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!  Still going...  Nothing outlasts the
>           Loeskalth...  It keeps going... and going... and going...

AARGH!

[email removed]
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future